My Mom tends to overuse words. In high school everything was a ‘struggle’ until one day in a shining moment of self-assertiveness I asked her to please stop using that word. I believe my request left her speechless for approximately three minutes until she ran through her mental thesaurus and came up with something equally as annoying.

I love you Mom.

Since she’s gotten old she’s starting making up words – she uses the word ‘Chockablock’ like it’s her job – as in “I don’t know if we can get the leftover turkey in the fridge that thing is chockablock full.” This drives me crazy; it (spoiler alert) drives everybody crazy.

Recently I instituted a rule where the word in banned in our house – this (of course) forces my husband to run around the house yelling at me “chockablock, chockablock, chockablock!” It’s very reminiscent of Miracle Max and his hatred of Prince Humperdinck.

Lucy, of course, thinks this is great and sometimes also gets in to the action and also runs around yelling chockablock for no apparent reason. And all of this is good and harmless except that I forgot to tell her it’s a game we only play with Mommy and Daddy.

Fast forward to last week when my parents were visiting and Nana says to Lucy “Your room is chockablock full of toys” and Lucy looks at her wide eyed and says “No Nana we aren’t allowed to say that in this house!”

Whops.

How do you explain to your Mom that her idiosyncrasies have become fodder for family fun time? With wine – that’s how.

This past week my husband and I took a long hard look at all of the social engagements and family obligations we have coming up over the next few months and we correlated that with the seating options in our house and we came to the not-so-startling conclusion that only 3 and a half people can  sit comfortably in our living room. On a day to day basis this is just fine, but there comes a point in adulthood where you shouldn’t have to drag folding chairs in to your main living space or make your in-laws sit on the floor if you want to all hang out together.

Thus began a round of furniture shopping. Now I love my husband dearly, he is by and large an excellent human being but he has a taste level I find…. Atrocious…difficult to deal with…Differs greatly from my own.

My husband’s idea of ultimate comfort and style involves anything from the lazy boy 80’s collection. New furniture that looks old. OLD. And the more recliners and drink holders involved the better. Corduroy and tweed did not seem out of the realm of possibility either and at all of this I drew the line. I am a reasonable person, but only up to a point, you know?

Furniture shopping is terrible; there is no joy in walking around large warehouses, being accosted by pushy and desperate sales people. Add to this a rambunctious four year old who only wants to pretend that she’s a cat and it makes it 600 times worse. Plus we had the added pressure of waiting until two days before our first round of guests were to arrive before we made it out to the store. Nothing like opposing design aesthetics, a hyperactive preschooler and an unreasonable time crunch to really bring out the best in people.

We began at 5:00 on Friday night and essentially shopped all weekend until mid-morning Sunday in a delirium we pulled the trigger and bought something neither of us expected. It is a weird amalgam of sleek and modern, overstuffed and comfy. Made of microfiber without a single cup holder.

It wasn’t until we made up our minds, arranged for transportation, and finally felt freed from the pressure to make a decision that we realized  our new lovely sofa and love seat combination matches nothing (nothing) in our house, in a sea of taupes and creams and browns we are going to introduce a large dark, slate gray monstrosity.

I would worry about this – but at this point I feel like it is simply easier to repaint our house and replace our carpet than go back to the furniture store.

Maybe we could just sell our house and move in to something that better matches our new furniture.